At all times, and especially in the dark storms of life, we need to stay close to our Lord Jesus Christ. I like to think of it as staying under His umbrella.

My teenage daughters and I sometimes try to walk together in the rain under one small umbrella (mine, because they neglected to remember theirs). It must be a sight to see, as we all inch along trying not to trip over each other while at the same time trying to keep up with the moving cover.

When life gets dark and stormy, and you feel scared and uncertain, it’s important to stay really close to The Lord where there is cover (light, security, peace, love, the promise of deliverance…).

It’s about trusting that He is with you where you are, and keeping your focus on Him so that you can stay where He is. No looking ahead or behind right now! Sometimes it’s not even advisable to look around too much. Just trust that He is leading you, by the power of His Holy Spirit, and that He knows where He is going. Your job is to stay close to Him, under His protective cover, and to follow where He leads.

Recently I talked with one of our SHLC elders, and then with Pastor Dan, about some things I have been struggling with. It really helped to let someone, in Christ, care for me with encouragement from God’s Word and with prayer. That’s one way of staying under the umbrella.

Another way is to spend some time on your own in prayer and in God’s Word. When you feel confused or angry, or weak in your faith, you can confess these to God and ask for His forgiveness. Pastor Dan has assured me that it is ok to be honest with God about how we truly feel.

Just being in Sunday worship helps! Jesus reassures us of His love and forgiveness, and of our salvation in Him, every time we come to His table for Communion. That’s a kind of coming under His cover too.

We can enjoy Christian fellowship.

I don’t know about you, but when things get dark in my life I often experience doubts which can make me feel guilty or ashamed. In those dark times I tend to focus on my faults and failures, and on my sin. Sometimes I find myself avoiding my family in Christ, or even Jesus Himself, so that I can hide what I’m feeling. But this is never a good thing, because it’s stepping outside of the umbrella into the cold and the rain.

That’s just where the evil one wants us, out there away from God, and from everyone and everything else that can help us. If you stay out there too long, the devil will try to make you believe that you belong out there.

Jesus Christ, the light of the world, welcomes us to take cover under Him! On The Cross, with His innocent suffering and death for our sins and in His glorious Resurrection, Jesus earned that place with Him, for all eternity, for us and for all people. By grace, through faith in Him, we can come in under His big, roomy umbrella of hope. He rescues us from the storms, and from all our doubts, and He will come again to take us to be with Him forever.

Imagine that you are Peter, disciple of Jesus Christ, out in a boat on the Sea of Galilee with the other disciples. You are out at night, in a storm. You are out there because Jesus sent you to go on ahead…without Him. (Matthew 14:22-33)

He said that He would follow, and you try to remind yourself of this as the wind picks up.

But soon the boat is “a considerable distance from land” and is increasingly being “buffeted by the waves” (vs. 24). You begin to wonder how Jesus will even find you. Your short term memory of how He miraculously fed 5,000+ people earlier that day is drowned in the immediate and tangible crisis, and your rising doubts and fear.

What thougths might be going through your mind?

‘Where is He? Doesn’t Jesus know or care about what is happening to us? I thought He came to make things right! This isn’t what I expected. This isn’t what I had hoped for. Why did He call us to follow Him just to send us out here by ourselves? We’re not strong enough for this! This will surely destroy us! Has He forgotten us? Has He abandoned us? Is He really who He says He is?’

In Sunday’s sermon, Pastor Dan helped us to see that when Jesus came out walking on the water to the disciples in the boat that night, He showed them that He is God and reigns over all of creation. Jesus reassured the men that He was with them, even in the storm.

“Take courage,” He said. “It is I. Don’t be afraid.” (vs. 27)

I used to think that Peter was a hero when he got out of the boat and walked on the water with Jesus, even if he did sink when he took his eyes off of The Lord to look around at the wind and the waves. But as Pastor Dan also pointed out in his sermon, Peter was only out there on the water because he doubted.

“Lord, if it’s you…” he had said (vs. 28). We must not overlook that “if”. Two miracles in one day, and still Peter needed reassurance.

Our most powerful confessions of faith in Jesus often come precisely after those times of trial and testing – those storms – that would cause us to question not just “where are you Lord?” but “who are you Lord?”. After Jesus stepped into the boat and calmed the storm, the disciples worshipped Him, confessing “Truly you are the Son of God.” (vs. 32)

Peter learned to ‘stay in the boat’ during the many ‘storms’ that followed. When Jesus claimed to be “the living bread”, many of His disciples were shocked and dismayed, and they deserted Him (John 6:41-71). How could they have understood what Jesus meant when He said, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life…”? (vs. 54) At the time it sounded outrageous, and Jesus wasn’t explaining – yet. This called for great trust. It called for faith, that Jesus was who He said He was, even when nothing made sense and everything seemed to be unraveling. It called for sitting tight in the boat! It called for a confession of faith.

“Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.” (vs. 68-9) Surely Peter’s confession strengthened his own heart and the hearts of those disciples who remained. Surely Peter’s confession came from a heart strengthened by his Lord, who had walked with him, who had walked on water for him!

It was Jesus’ “words of eternal life” that created such faith in Peter, making him strong and steady, able to use his own words to confess Jesus as “the Holy One of God”.

The faith that saves comes from God.

Jesus said that “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent”. (John 6:29) That means we stay in the boat and ride out the storms, confessing our Lord’s power to save. We tell others about Him, speaking The Word, so that they too may have this saving faith.